If someone asks you to name a place on earth that you would consider safe, I would be willing to bet that Columbia isn’t the first name that jumps into your mind. It isn’t strange that a place filled to the brim with piranhas, jaguars, and drug lords sounds forbidding. Now, what if I were to tell you that Columbia is a veritable playground when compared to 59 million years ago? (This being after the dinosaurs went extinct; Dinosaurs being scary is a given.)

Recently, in a coal mine in Columbia the miners found themselves digging up something other than coal: snake skeletons. Specifically the fossilized skeletons of what has been named Titanoboa.

The vertebrae on the left is a modern anaconda, the one on the right is titanoboa. Now some stats courtesy of Wikipedia: length 12-15 meters, weight 2,500lbs, diameter 1 meter. If this snake was lying next to you, you could literally touch it with your hand without having to bend down. The cool thing I learned when reading about this monster is that on account of there being a direct correlation between temperature and the maximum size a snake can obtain, scientists are able to determine the average temperature of the era. Until now I couldn’t have cared less about global warming (sorry, ‘climate change’). Fewer polar bears and slightly higher sea levels don’t phase me, but add giant freaking snakes to the table and you’ve got my attention.

I’m going to do a quick round of mathematics here before I sign off. If you look on the internet you can find images/videos of anacondas eating various animals. Going off the one where it eats an alligator I come up with the following:

Largish anaconda: 300lbs.

Large male alligator: 800lbs. Probable alligator: 400lbs

Titanoboa: 2,500lbs

Average male giraffe: 2,630lbs

Alligator to anaconda weight ratio: 1.25

Giraffe to titanoboa weight ratio: 1.052

Verdict: Scary ass snake could eat a giraffe whole.*

-Wolverox

* may or may not be bullshit

Tags: fossils, giraffe snack, global warming, snake